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I wonder if that tweet is even real TBH. Or at least from a real person's account not just trolling.
There is a persistent and mistaken belief on this thread that Iran benefits from the Taliban being in power in Afghanistan. It doesn’t.
The Taliban benefit from pretty much any intervention/interference, though.
This is comedy gold
We ( the west) could have saved Afghanistan if we had the will. We managed to with Yugoslavia
Functioning state on the edge of Europe compared to a country that is a basket case, narco state, about as far as you could get from a modern functioning country. Surrounded by countries not aligned with the west. But yes just like Yugoslavia.....
As well as the military – and that needs to be overwhelming with boots on the ground and many deaths there needs to be in parallel a huge effort to set up functioning governments, educate people, get industry growing etc etc. 20 years of that should be enough.
And when they are being killed in their hundreds what then? if the military couldn't protect itself how do you create a safe space for all these civilians? Who is going to do these jobs, where will they live, how do you protect them 24/7 for 20 years
the problem is the west only did the military bit. NO proper efforts to build a properly functioning government, nothing for industry just attempting to destroy the one decent source of income many rural poor have – poppies – with nothing to replace it
Because there was never a peace to create the functioning honest civil service required, educate to create the workers, build to create the factories, to create the new society
Just install a few corrupt tribal leaders as puppets and ignore everything else and then pretend thats a decent civil society set up
If the general population was better off for the intervention then you stand a chance. they were not – they were worse off.
The sad reality is they weren't worse off during the intervention as bad as it was, and lots think they are going to have a real drop in their standard of living with the Taliban in charge.
Considering that we (the West) forcibly changed the regime I don't think we can lecture the Taliban about the ethics of a military takeover.
I think that they have backwards and despotic attitudes to women and education but we're going to have no choice but to deal with them on an international level to maintain any kind of uneasy peace.
Possibly making aid and other forms of support for Afghanistan in general contingent on not murdering children or selling girls into slavery would be a start. ****stan could also be manipulated into applying pressure on similar aid withdrawal threats.
There's no point refusing to deal with them "because they're nasty"; China is openly committing genocide of the Uygher Muslims and the West isn't particularly bothered about that provided that small children still assemble their iPhones fast enough.
provided that small children still assemble their iPhones fast enough
To be fair, iPhones are (or were) made by Foxconn, and when I was at their factory (a few years ago) there were no small children in evidence. They didn't let me on the iphone line (as you would expect) but the lines I did see were clean and safe as far as I could tell.
Do they…? What technology do they need that they can’t buy elsewhere? There are currently NO sanctions against Afghanistan.
That will depend on the Talib leadership or ideology as saviour to world. Any technology that can be used to their advantage they will deploy no matter what they are. They might look "primitive" but they are not and very well coordinated.
Yugoslavia wasn't saved; it doesn't exist.
Tito held it together and kept a a lid on the simmering ethnic tensions; as soon as he died mladic and others led and stoked ethnic cleansing.
Intervention was too little and too late.
Moving back to Afghanistan I see the gov have announced we will accept upto 20k refugees over the next few years with upto 5k in first year.
It's better than nothing.
Could and should do so much more and in short time period.
Moving back to Afghanistan I see the gov have announced we will accept upto 20k refugees over the next few years with upto 5k in first year.
Should only accept those that work with the West. Certainly not those able bodied men that leave their women folks and children behind.
Agree with the sentiment chewie but would be difficult to police that.
The Taliban when last in power practically stamped out opium production IIRC.
80% of the Afghan economy is foreign aid as I posted earlier.There is no way any Afghan government can improve life for the population without it in the foreseeable future-maybe the Saudis will step in? The ex Afghan army and perhaps much of the civil and public sector will now not get paid so they'll be no money circulating through the economy.
What are all those guys walking round with Kalashnikovs gonna do now and what can they contribute to the economy? The warlords will need to dip into their deep pockets previously filled by US dollars to keep funding them .And let's face it they won't allow women to work or get fully educated either.It is/will be an economic basket case
What Afghanistan really needs to keep it's people safe and out of poverty is an abundance of vital natural resources like in the Democratic Republic of Congo or Nigeria or Venezuela....
just as well it barely exists.
TBF they are 100 times more prominent online than they are in real life
****stan could also be manipulated into applying pressure on similar aid withdrawal threats.
The "get on a short leash or else" policy in ****stan has been going pretty poorly for the last 20 years.
Tito held it together and kept a a lid on the simmering ethnic tensions; as soon as he died mladic and others led and stoked ethnic cleansing.
I think you must mean Milosevic rather than Mladic: Mladic was no-one when Tito died in 1980, and if he hadn't by chance been sent to Srpska Krajina in 1991 by the Yugoslav Popular Army then I doubt we would have ever heard his name.
FWIW I don't think that Tito was integral to keeping Yugoslavia together and I don't think Milosevic either ended for the end of Yugoslavis nor was he that instrumental in its collapse. It's all a bit too "great man of history" to me, and there was a decade between Tito's death and that of (socialist) Yugoslavia.
By the time Slovenia declared independence there had been 1.5 years of anti-socialist nationalism across Central and Eastern Europe, and YU's economic failures and structural readjustment were biting hard.
Yugoslavia wasn’t saved; it doesn’t exist.
It didn't exist before 1918 either.
What Afghanistan really needs to keep it’s people safe and out of poverty is an abundance of vital natural resources like in the Democratic Republic of Congo or Nigeria or Venezuela….
There are apparently substantial untapped mineral resources which the Chinese are quite keen to purchase.
How are the neighbouring Stans feeling about it? Are they aligned with Moscow or Mecca ? Can we expect a domino theory all the way to the Russian border?
I have no idea but apparently chains and Russia are the only embassy staying in Kabul.
What are all those guys walking round with Kalashnikovs gonna do now and what can they contribute to the economy?
They will have funds but not a lot to sustain a nation until the minerals are extracted. Then I suspect "salary" will only be paid to those that are part of the "movement". Ordinary people just have to find their own ways to survive.
There are apparently substantial untapped mineral resources which the Chinese are quite keen to purchase.
Thousands of years ago China has already connected all the rivers from that region to to Shanghai. The question is when the mineral extraction starts there will be inevitable pollution to the rivers and hopefully not the main river that also lead to downstream SE Asia countries.
I have no idea but apparently chains and Russia are the only embassy staying in Kabul.
They are the only two embassies left in Kabul.
What are all those guys walking round with Kalashnikovs gonna do now and what can they contribute to the economy?
They are pushing to get NGOs working again (in the North anyway) . Their liason there is someone who used to work for an NGO.
Stand back everyone. The house of commons has been recalled so that they can all talk about Afghanistan. They'll have this mess sorted in no time.
Three cheers for 'Global Britain'! Huzzah!!
FFS this shitty Tory government, "we're a big hearted nation" oh but we're capping the refugees we'll take this year at 5000. I'm guessing they're hoping there won't be another 5000 still alive the following year so they can say job done 🙁
Looking at all the media coming from the Taliban, You've got to say they've got us all sussed haven't they?
Act cool, don't do anything stupid, have your picture taken with a smiling bareheaded woman, tell everyone that it's fine, nothing to see here...then the world's media will get fixated on something else, and Afghanistan will be ignored...
What Afghanistan really needs to keep it’s people safe and out of poverty is an abundance of vital natural resources like in the Democratic Republic of Congo or Nigeria or Venezuela….
Huge cobalt reserves that China has had a concession to mine for a decade now. (not much done as yet; apparently a lot of the "engineers" spent time hunting Uighurs who had fled to Afghanistan.)
What Afghanistan really needs to keep it’s people safe and out of poverty is an abundance of vital natural resources like in the Democratic Republic of Congo or Nigeria or Venezuela….
There are apparently substantial untapped mineral resources which the Chinese are quite keen to purchase.
I think you've missed the original irony.
Countries where most of their resources are dug out of the ground make for great dictatorships not great democracies with wealthy, safe inhabitants
Unbelievable. listening to Johnson in parliament he is genuinely trying to spin this like it was all planned, carefully executed and we can all sit back and be proud of what we've 'achieved' in Afghanistan.
Either they really do exist in an alternative universe or they're just gaslighting everyone again
Yup.They need the aid money until the mineral extraction starts and poppy production is back on track. If they can wait 20 years till the US troops go they can bluff out a few months of being the liberal talicrats.
They're probably quite keen for intellectuals, educated women ex gov personnel to bugger off quietly too, saves on knife sharpening and awkward questions.
Looking at all the media coming from the Taliban, You’ve got to say they’ve got us all sussed haven’t they?
Act cool, don’t do anything stupid, have your picture taken with a smiling bareheaded woman, tell everyone that it’s fine, nothing to see here…then the world’s media will get fixated on something else, and Afghanistan will be ignored…
This. They’ll (unfortunately) be leaks of the odd stoning or female oppression which will be denied by the Taliban leaders in global media for a few months until the next Coronavirus wave or a UK fall out with Biden takes over the headlines.
Huge cobalt reserves that China has had a concession to mine for a decade now. (not much done as yet; apparently a lot of the “engineers” spent time hunting Uighurs who had fled to Afghanistan.)
What people (not you) forget is that China doesn't have a magic wand for this stuff, in Afghanistan or in Africa. Chinese state-owned and -directed mining companies and contractors are great at chucking the money around and signing deals, but their ability to actually build the things is limited by the same things local and "western" companies are: long term insecurity, lack of power and water, lack of skilled workers, unclear tax and legal regimes, lack of transport infrastructure, difficulty of accessing finance and technology, lack of supply chain... Building a mine is a fantastically expensive process and you need to believe you're going to be in place for 20 or more years.
Considering that we (the West) forcibly changed the regime I don’t think we can lecture the Taliban about the ethics of a military takeover.
I think that they have backwards and despotic attitudes to women and education but we’re going to have no choice but to deal with them on an international level to maintain any kind of uneasy peace.
Hmmm, only a few days ago Afghan women and girls were able to work, go to school, all under the impression that the "uneasy peace" that allowed them these rights was now established and supported by "The West"... Lets be clear the Taliban will be oppressing Women... It's perhaps the cruelest thing 'We' could do to allow a generation to grow up with the expectation of rights, education and fairer treatment than their Mothers and to then just walk away and let the whole thing collapse?
Possibly making aid and other forms of support for Afghanistan in general contingent on not murdering children or selling girls into slavery would be a start. ****stan could also be manipulated into applying pressure on similar aid withdrawal threats.
Won't work, they hid in ****ing caves for two decades FFS if they could be bought it would have happened by now. They'll happily tell us to shove our aid up our arses while they get back to their old ways. They don't need support anyway they can finance themselves just fine by supplying smack to our own deprived areas...
There’s no point refusing to deal with them “because they’re nasty”; China is openly committing genocide of the Uygher Muslims and the West isn’t particularly bothered about that provided that small children still assemble their iPhones fast enough.
The main difference is the West are largely powerless to intervene in China on the various human rights issues, where as we were already having an effect in Afghanistan. It wasn't a perfect situation, but there were benefits being seen by the population on the ground, that is what Biden has thrown away.
Corruption in power was to be expected, the only way to build a functioning state was to stay longer, much longer and raise the prospects, level of education and desire for change in a generation to displace the old rulers. The job wasn't even halfway done...
But yep the harm you so glibly described that will now come to the Female population of Afghanistan sits squarely on Biden's shoulders, he knew what would happen.
Won’t work, they hid in **** caves for two decades FFS
Did they? Is this going back to the pre-invasion stories about Bin Laden's secret cave supervillain hideout?
They didn't hide in caves for two decades, they lived like kings in ****stan
Lets be clear the Taliban will be oppressing Women… It’s perhaps the cruelest thing ‘We’ could do to allow a generation to grow up with the expectation of rights, education and fairer treatment than their Mothers and to then just walk away and let the whole thing collapse?
Don't get me wrong; I completely agree with you. Personally I think that just pulling the plug on Afghanistan is an appalling thing to do and as you say, has pretty much wiped out any chance of rights and education for women and girls. But walking away *and* turning our backs on the mess that we're largely responsible for is absolutely despicable.
But that won't change - Biden and Johnson have washed their hands of the whole thing and no one's going to be going back. Apparently China is quite keen on muscling in for the natural resources but I can't even guess at the consequences there.
They didn’t hide in caves for two decades, they lived like kings in ****stan
The Taliban has controlled huge swathes of Afghanistan since 2001. They never went away.
£900k a week
Thats what the last 20years had cost the uk.
Plus the cost in human lives ruined
All for nothing in the end. The taliban wont have changed, and now i feel it will be worse for the majority of the country as they seek to dominate and embed themselves into power
I dont know thr answer, but legging it was wrong
Either they really do exist in an alternative universe or they’re just gaslighting everyone again
Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.
They don’t need support anyway they can finance themselves just fine by supplying smack to our own deprived areas
How is that "war on drugs" going?
But that won’t change – Biden and Johnson have washed their hands of the whole thing and no one’s going to be going back. Apparently China is quite keen on muscling in for the natural resources but I can’t even guess at the consequences there.
I guess the problem I have is the speed with which people have gone from being "appalled" to acceptance and then justification by comparison with China and speculation on the future economic arrangements and how "We" now go about doing business with an oppressive regime we've essentially just reinstated.
Afghanistan is going to vanish from public awareness in the next couple of cycles when the next new shiny thing distracts the news organisations and that'll be it...
I also seriously doubt Boris or Raab were consulted... nor that they really care.
Biden and Johnson have washed their hands of the whole thing
That faint tinkling sound you can hear in the background is the pennies dropping in the commons as the intellectually incurious backbench Tory MPs realising that electing as their leader a 2nd rate gossip columnist who's hand-picked a cabinet of village idiots might not have been their finest hour after all.
Yip. Even the hardest of thinking on the Tory benches today realised that Johnsons monstrous sociopathic narcissism is actually so severe that he genuinely couldn't even give a flying **** about 'our brave boys' killed and maimed in Afghanistan, for apparently nothing, never mind the population of the country. His volcanic self-regard doesn't even allow him to countenance the idea that this isn't a great look.
It was obvious from their body language and general demeanour today, with both him and Raab, that there main concern is that they've had to grudgingly interrupt their holidays.
that there main concern is that they’ve had to grudgingly interrupt their holidays.
Bit unfair. I am sure Johnson is also concerned where he can go for a daytrip if there is another vote on Heathrows third runway.
The Chinese ambassador was quoted saying that the transfer of power to the Taliban was less bloody than the transfer of power in Washington DC
this is worth a listen
https://play.acast.com/s/dansnowshistoryhit/afghanistan-historyrepeatingitself-
That faint tinkling sound you can hear in the background is the pennies dropping in the commons as the intellectually incurious backbench Tory MPs...
...if they didn't realise it before now they're not going to see it today either
Listen to the Dan snow podcast up there, implies that Ghani never stood a chance as he was the wrong guy for the job.
Thousands of years ago China has already connected all the rivers from that region to to Shanghai.
Really?
The Chinese ambassador was quoted saying that the transfer of power to the Taliban was less bloody than the transfer of power in Washington DC
Oof.
Wonder if there ever is going to be any any audit on any senior gov officials when they land in their chosen place of exile? That has by pure random chance, such a welcoming policy towards their counterparts from around the world.
Slightly related. I used to work with a Vietnamese American guy. Nice bloke, very American, life revolved around Work and Church.
He was 14 when Saigon fell. One of his older brothers was a helicopter pilot. His brother took a helicopter, picked up as much of his family as he could and flew to a US aircraft carrier. They all ended up in the US and became citizens.
His uncle was in the army, stayed behind and was sent to a re-education camp. My friend said "sent to a re-education camp to die". He survived.
It's now more than 30 years later. His daughter has been back to Vietnam as part of her degree. Vietnam is now thriving.
Hopefully it won't take another 30 years for Afghanistan.
I don't think this has been shared before, but
"This Is What Winning Looks Like" is a disturbing new documentary about the ineptitude, drug abuse, sexual misconduct, and corruption of the Afghan security forces as well as the reduced role of US Marines due to the troop withdrawal.
It's 8 years old, but it doesn't look like things got much better since it was recorded.